Founder's Day 2012




Thses are our friends the Taylors-note our Founders Day ribbons

Founders Day 2012

By Greg



Elder Taylor took this picture in Boston of Mitt Romney, me and Spencer Stokes  What a small world we live in.

Yesterday was Founder’s Day here in Ghana.  It is like President’s Day in the US.  They have a picture of their founders on their money.    There are six of them. One of them is Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.  He was educated in America and was behind the building of the famous Akosombo Dam, which we have not seen yet, but brought electricity and industry to Ghana.

This is the Independance Arch

 Their last President died in office a few months ago and they are now having a Presidential election this fall.  The former vice-president is now president and is running for election. Their campaigns are all promising liberty and peace, which seems to be the Ghana motto.

Viewing Platform on the sqyare-Hillary sat under the umbrella

They do not campaign for years and spend so much money as they do in the US. 

 

 

President Obama came here in 2009 and Hillary Clinton came for the funeral, which was held on Independence Square, outside.  The square is huge, like ten soccer fields, only a hard surface. It is surrounded by stadium seating on three sides.  Did I say the square was huge?

 

Beyond the View Platform is the ocean.  Behind is the big Independence Square.  There is also big scoccer staidium across the street.

 

We went with the Taylors for a holiday.  We saw the ocean and the big Independence Square and the Independence Arch. This square and arch commemorates Ghana’s independence, which was obtained from England in 1957.  Ghana was the first country in Africa to obtain independence from European colonization.

 

We went to the Centre for National Culture area which is also called the Arts Centre.  It is a lot like the International Market in Hawaii only not as nice.  Here, art works are for sale.  It is more like Tijuana, Mexico, only not as nice.

 

Elder Taylor is the kind of guy that says, “Hey, I wonder what is down this street.” Only the streets are barely streets.  We have done this now, by accident, and so having Elder Taylor as an example has made it not so scary for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the effort to change the public health code  Fine is 50,000 cedis.  That is $25,000!








 

Did I say we saw the ocean?  It is beautiful out beyond the beach about a hundred yards.  Actually, the beaches were not that bad.  There was a lot of activity, and we are sure it got busier later on, as we were there early.

A large group is waiting for the fish catch to be divided.


 

 

 

 

The next day was Saturday.  We checked out a car as they have not yet assigned us one.  We drove to the store and back for some haggling at the Arts Centre.  We took a few wrong turns but we both agreed to just laugh and say that it was part of the trip.  We found a lighthouse by a castle and a really poor beach area.  In the US this would all be private condos and exclusive.

 Those are beach houses.

 

We saw this lizzard and Debi made me take a picture for the boys.  Pretty cool lizzard don't you think? This is our first wild animal.  It was in the Temple parking lot.

We went to church again today by ourselves.  We drove there only making one wrong turn.  We do have Google maps on our phones but, Debi’s notes were excellent and we found the church, though we were a few minutes late.  Next week we will post pictures of the church.

 

This pig lives on the beach.  He is just coming out of his beach house to go for a swim?

We wonder how he has got this big without being eaten.  He must be a special pig.

We have been here almost two weeks now.  We have been working with Brother William Sowah, who is the Area Auditor.  That is his church calling. He is an amazing man but needs some help as he has a job and a family and does not have the time to travel and train.  We are working trying to get all the mid-year audits completed and entered.  The due date is September 30, 2012.  Now that I have my own stapler, we will be able to complete this assignment.

 

We are happy and really feel like missionaries.  We go to the Temple each week and we see members as they come and stay in this building to attend the temple. 
 

 

This is the view out our window.  We think these are embassey houses.  This one is just over the wall.  It has a nice swimming pool behind those trees.  There is a road that goes around to these gated homes. 

 

 I will work for food!










 

By Debi:

 

We had a group of members that came to the Temple from Kumasi.  A group of Young Women and Young Men had come to do baptisms for the dead. The first evening that they were here I had walked out of our apartment to do some laundry.  There stood 6 beautiful Young Women.  I asked them if they were here to go to the temple.  In total unison they said “Yes”.  Then I asked them if they were Young Women.  They said “Yes” again in unison.  They all stood before me with the biggest smiles and so anxious to talk to me.  I was so happy to talk to them.  I felt like I was back home talking with my own daughters or granddaughters.  I asked them if they were having a good time coming to the temple.  They said “Yes” in totally unison.  It started to be so funny.  I started to laugh and they started to laugh.  No matter what I asked they all said yes in unison.  They were looking for their room so I helped them find the number on the door.  I asked them if they were going to the temple in the morning.  “Yes” in unison again with the biggest smiles.  I started to call them the “Yes” girls for the rest of their stay.

 

 

The next evening after we had been in the office all day we saw the Yes girls as we came up the stairs.  Greg and I got a picture of them because they are so cute.  Greg asked them if they ever said no.  They said “Yes”.  We all started to laugh.  Then Greg asked them if someone asked them to smoke what would they say. All in unison with a frown they said “No”.  Greg asked them what they would say if a wonderful young man asked them to marry him.  They answered with a loud “Yes” in perfect unison.  I told them they should be a choir because they are so perfectly together. We had such a great time this week with this young group.  The youth that we have been privileged to visit are so strong and their testimonies are so bright. They all have smiles on their faces and are truly happy.

We are driving in this.  All of these tro-tros are wild drivers.  Can you see the hub caps on the white van?  They are like Ben Hur chariott killer caps.  We will try to give him as much room as he needs.



 



 

We attended our ward for the second week.  Greg suggested that I should visit the Primary.  Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.  I came home a little depressed.  The children are so happy and so bright. I couldn’t believe what they know.  The Primary President called 12 children out of the audience and each one took a turn reciting the scripture for one of the months for this year.  The children didn’t know that they would be asked today and they didn’t know ahead of time which scripture they would recite but amazingly enough each child (and some of them were little like maybe CTR 5) recited the scripture when the President told them the month. 

 

The thing that made me sad was there were no pictures, no piano, no stories, no activities that the children got to be “picked” and no crayons and paper to color a picture.  The sisters were doing the best they can with the outlined program of the Primary but the children do not enjoy what our children at home enjoy.

 

After I came home and thought about it for a moment a thought came to my mind.  These children don’t know anything different.  They are happy, they have big smiles on their faces and they are being taught the gospel.  They are not suffering.  They are blessed!  The Lord loves these children just as much as any other child in the world.  They just have a different life here but it is still good.

This is a high school band returning from the peace rally at Independence Square.

 

This is an old weaver.  He makes these beautiful clothes.  We watched him weave.  He uses hands, feet, head and knees.  Look at the wonderful colors.


Yes, we are in Africa and it is different but we are finding out that it is OKAY.

 

Love Debi and Greg

Elder and Sister Haws

By popular demand

 

Of course, he is facing East

By Greg

 

OK, we got the message from some of our faithful fans that you want more information about us and Africa.  For those of you that have had enough, you can click forward.

The flowers are so lovely

 

We are assigned to the Ofankor Ward.  There is a couple from our ward that works here at the Ancillary Building (where we live) whose names are Josephine and Douglas.  They have to get up at 3:00 am and take several tro-tros (those van buses I showed in the last post).  They don’t get home till after dark, but they are so happy to have this great job.  She comes dressed very nice (this is near the Temple) and then changes into her work clothes.  We really like them.

The workers work so hard to make everything nice and clean and beautiful.

 

A couple of things that I did not expect.  It is cloudy most days but does not rain.  We cannot see the sun.  I have not seen the moon since we left and as I ran my life by the cycles of the moon this is hard for me.  We get home about 6:00 and it is getting dark. It feels like it is winter, but we know it is not. I have not seen any stars either.  Maybe that is why I cannot get my bearings. Perhaps that is why Tarzans family, the Swiss Family Robinson and others crashed on the shore.

 

Each morning we walk around Temple Square.  We are going to bed earlier and so getting up at 6:00 am is getting easier.  Debi wants to walk faster than I do.  She always has walked circles around me.  They are doing a lot of construction around the Square, but they do a great job keeping it clean and safe.

This is Sister Haws at her desk and new computer, which she loves!

I also thought that maybe the water in the toilet would go in a different direction like Kenny and Wayne claim it did in South America.  Well, we are right on the equator and the toilet just goes straight down.  Thank goodness!  Where it goes from there we don’t ask.

 

They are building a new building to house the Area Presidency, the Temple Presidency and some others.  When this is done, there will be a “”grand musical chairs” and we will probably be asked to move to some condos down the street.  The problem is that the traffic is so bad it takes a half hour to go just a mile or two.  We asked if we could just walk.  Noooooooo.  So we will drive.

 We are not sure what this Hippo 200 is, but it is made in Ghana and may be the only hippo we see for a while.




 

We have been watching a couple every morning sitting on a bench in front of the Temple.  He really looks like he wants to ask her a question.  I don’t think he has yet, but he will.

 

There are not a lot of birds of paradise.  We have seen some small birds, ravens and vultures.  They always seem to be circling above me. Hey, I am not dead, yet! There are great big bats flying around out there, but we like bats because they eat mosquitos.

 

We are making a lot of new friends.  The men all look alike. Here are three of them.  No, they are not triplets.  They are smart, educated and older than they look.  They are all either Stake Presidents or have been.  They rotate around and one is now a branch president, again. 

Arnold is the head of the Member and Statistical Records Department.  He has a very important job.

Joshua is the assistant controller.  He is also very important.

Another friend is Ruben.  He is an IT guy and we would be lost without him.

There is another Joshua, and a Ernest, William, David, Nicolas and Daniel.


They all have African last names that we are having trouble learning so we call them all by their first names.

Friday is a national holiday.  What a job—we work two weeks and get a holiday.  It is founder’s day.  This is not Independence Day.  It is more like Presidents day in the US.  We don’t know for sure what we are supposed to do.  We just may “go on a holiday”.  Actually, we may go to the office or go visit some of our associates.  We will see.

 

They don’t measure the temperature the same as we do.  I was trying to convert.  Debi just knows 22 is too cold.  I did some work and the conversion is C=(F-32)*.5555 and F=(C/.5555)+32.  She thinks I am weird.  Oh, our new phones are so cool and the have a world clock so I don’t have to wear two watches anymore.

Debi needs no calculator to convert wash and dry times.  Pretty nice set-up.  This wash room is just across the hall from us.

The Church is learn as they go.  They put these beautiful stained glass windows in the Temple then they covered them on the outside with an opaque glass for security and so someone could not see into the Temple.  What they did not expect was that was like a petrie glass for growing mould.  So they had to fly in a crew from Utah to fix the problem.  The good part is now the beautiful windows are better seen from the outside.

 

(I saw this little table with a stapler just sitting there with no one around.  But then we saw a bigger and better one)

I have worked most of my life in an office.  I have had my tools ready at hand.  I like things organized where I can be efficient.  We have had the darndest time getting some basic supplies.  We needed a work table and some other things, like a stapler.  Well, they gave a stapler, but it did not work.  We saw this table outside our room and it looked perfect.  No one seemed to be using it, so we “borrowed” it while everyone else was at lunch.  (I have no idea where they go for lunch.  There is a room on the ground floor—not the 1^st floors—we are on the 1^st floor which is the second level—maybe they go there).  Anyway, when they got back some of the love that they once exhibited for us “was entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions” as it says in the book. Anyway, we tried to apologize and assure these sweet sisters that we would return it soon.

 

Today I got my own stapler.  In fact, we got two.  Maybe they could all see the stress I was under.

 

I reviewed over 150 unit audits today and have a lot more to go.  I ended the day looking at some from Cote d’Ivorie (the Ivory Coast).  They are all in French. I guess they are all good.

 This is the guard house and the gate.  We are in a compound and are safe all the time.  Out there the same cannot be said.  We wanted to go and walk down the street.  The security guard would not allow us.  He is not going to lose two whites on his watch.




 

I am reading a book called Walking in the Sand by Emmanuel Abu Kissi.  It is the history of the Church in Ghana.  We met brother Kissi’s daughter while shopping on Saturday.  This is printed by BYU press and is probably available at Deseret Book or the BYU bookstore or online.  So far it is very good.

 

One point the book makes it that the “God of Heaven and Earth, moved with compassion, decreed to his prophets that is was the time for this people to receive the healing balm of our Savior’s atonement.  They had suffered enough.  It was time for them to receive the everlasting ordinances of His priesthood and the temple.”  What a blessing this is and I can already testify that these people, so long left in sorrow and misery, this people who have endured brutal tribal wars, the slave trade, devastating diseases and poverty, are grateful.  They are not angry.  They do not call out for anyone to pay them back.  They are truly grateful.  And their land is being blessed.

 

We are blessed to be among them.

We belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

 

Most of the chapels are well marked on the major roads

By Greg:

 

We have been sending out a lot of messages.  We will probably now just do a blog once a week.  That could change if we have an unusual experience, but that is our plan right now.

 



The President of Ghana died a month ago, the red ribbons are to honor him

We went to our “home” ward today.  We have been assigned to the Ofankor Ward.  It was a very nice experience.  Elder and Sister Powell went with us to introduce us and to help us find it. 

 

One thing that has been very frustrating to me is that I have not been able to get my bearings.  We really have been going around in circles.  The Powells took us one way to the church and brought us back another.  This did not help me.  Debi was busy in the back seat taking notes as she is sure she is going to have to be the navigator.  At this point she has sworn she will not drive for the next two years—we will see about that.

 

The ward meets in a large rented home that is within a walled compound.  We have noticed that the nicer homes all have walls around them and most have heavy metal gates.  There may be a nice walled home right in the middle of something entirely different.

 

Most of the members do not have cars.  In fact there were maybe six cars parked (one was ours).  After the meeting one of the brothers came and asked us to give him our car.  I am still not sure if he was serious or not.

 

There is a large room with benches that is the chapel.  Then there are several other rooms for classes.  I went to the Gospel Essentials Sunday School class that was in the Relief Society Room.

 

Now this was a former home, but even the church built chapels do not have carpeted floors or soft chairs and benches.  The floors are tile and the chairs and benches are hard.

 

After we got home I needed to “find myself” so we went and sat down by the Temple.  Debi is a lot calmer about this direction thing, and bless her heart, she has good notes.  The Temple President and his wife also returned from their meeting and we met them.  I asked them if there are maps.  He pulled out one and I really thought about stealing it from him.  He is older, I could have, but it would not have been nice.  He also has a three ring binder with directions and smaller maps to the various chapels.  They visit different units each week.

 

We returned to our room and had a very good companionship study with Google Earth.  We have been around enough to make some sense of it.  I have to stand on my head to make north and south be in line with my “inner man” (This is an African term for our spirit, or our conscience, or that which is within us that helps us do well—the priesthood brethren talked a lot about this today).

These people are very religious as this new building will attest.

I feel much better.  We might get our car this week, or next, and I think with Debi’s help I can drive us safely to the store, to the mall, to the airport (if we need to make a mad dash for it) and to church.

 

The Sun is not much help either because it comes up and goes down in the wrong place.  But, if we look out our window in the evening, as the sun is going down in the wrong place, I know that somewhere out there, in that direction is home and our loved ones.

 

By Debi

 

 This is our first Sabbath day in Africa.  It has been such a beautiful day.  It hasn’t been too hot and today there was a lovely breeze.  As we wound our way through the streets of Accra this morning trying to find our church my heart ached.  Most of the people here live in such poverty that you can only understand it by seeing it.  When we went to Mexico with our daughter Rindi and her husband Greg a few years ago I thought that surely that was the worst poverty in the world.  But this puts a whole new meaning to the word “poverty”.  It is almost comical to think of what the United States considers as poverty.  If those standards where here, they would be considered absolute luxury. 

 

The amazing part is all of the members here came to church with beautiful African and Western clothes on and they were so well groomed and ready to worship.  They do not like to call themselves Mormon because it sounds too much like Muslim.  So they always call the church “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”.

 

Sister Powell warned me just as Sacrament meeting was starting that they might ask us to bear our testimonies.  Well, two speakers had already spoken and so I relaxed thinking that the third speaker would speak and they weren’t going to ask us.  Just then the counselor who was conducting got up and asked us to bear our testimonies.  I am so glad that I had thought about it before I got up.  We both gave a short testimony but very heart felt.  I told them we had only been here for six days and we were just learning.  I also told them how beautiful they were and how we loved them already.  There were lots of smiles in the audience so I hope they could understand me. 

 

They speak with such a strong accent that we can hardly understand them.  If we listen really close, we can get at least the idea of the conversation.  All three of the speakers gave wonderful talks and we were very impressed and touched by the spirit.

 

In Relief Society the sister that gave the lesson was amazing. She was so knowledgeable and knew the material so well.  She hardly even used notes.  She just gave an amazing lesson and the sisters really joined in with great comments.  Their testimonies are so strong and they truly understand the gospel principles.  Several times I have wondered why we are here.  Why are we assigned to a ward that seems so strong and is doing very well? Then the thought occurred to me that maybe I need them more than they need me.  I am the one who is going to grow and learn from these very humble and righteous people.

 

Today has been a very good day.  Our first Sabbath in Africa!